


but if you close your eyes

by kendrasaunders



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post 1x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5845438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kendrasaunders/pseuds/kendrasaunders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which kendra gets a goodbye, and carter makes a promise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but if you close your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> WHY DO I EVEN TRY TO LIKE THINGS WHEN THIS HAPPENS

He holds her hand.

And there’s a part of her that knows he is entirely unreal, a mix of sedative and grief. But he squeezes her fingers so tightly that for a moment, she lets herself forget.

“My love,” he says, and he is neither Khufu nor Carter but every iteration at once. “You have to live.”

She wonders if this is happening in real time. If Rip will come in to the med bay and see a ghost standing over her, stroking her hair. She gasps, and it stings. She lets herself wallow in it.

“Kendra.”

“No,” she hisses. “You died. I don’t want to get better. I want to-”

“What?” he says. “Be with me?”

She hasn’t stopped crying. She doesn’t plan to. “Yes, you idiot.”

He chuckles to himself. His thumb brushes her cheek. “Always such kind words from you, my love.”

She’s able to move, in that moment. And that assures her that this is definitely some kind of dream. That she can do something other than shake, that her voice is not a scream.

Their hands touch. It is the first time. It is the last. “I remembered.”

“You’ll remember again. But you have to live to do it.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t make me.”

He leans in. 4000 years of memory dictate that she remembers the exact color of his eyes. And he, every him, smiles softly. “I can’t go on without you, you know.”

“You can’t-” She sniffles. “You can’t reincarnate until I die, too.”

“And I’ll wait!” he says. Happily. Like this is all alright. “I will wait for you, my love. And you are going to have the longest, happiest life.”

She’s seething. She hurts. She hurts so badly and he won’t even grant her this one little thing. “I’m not going to be happy without you.”

“You’re not without me,” he says. “I’m-”

“If you say you’re in my fucking heart,” she snaps. “I swear-”

A laugh. “Well I’m sorry, darling, but that’s the truth.”

“It’s not good enough.”

He looms in her vision, head blocking out the fluorescent ceiling lights. Didn’t they have angel wings? Is that what all this meant? “It has to be.”

She grits her teeth, and tries to manage a glare. “Let me die.”

“No.”

“Please!” she says, in a half-gasp. “If you love me, if you want us to be together-”

“I told you I’m willing to wait,” he says. “My impatient little bird.”

“I can’t do this,” she says.

He slips his arm behind her. Pulls her up into a sitting position, and holds her to his chest.

It feels like floating. It feels like dying. She presses her hand to his chest. “Please, Carter. I’m alone without you. I’m always so-”

“You have a team,” he says. His fingers trace under her shoulder blades, like he’s looking for wings. “They can’t defeat Vandal without you.”

She wants to be petulant. Childish. Stubborn. She wants to tell him that they will find another way, and that they can find her in the next life. With him. When they’ve remembered again.

“You are so brave,” he says. “So good. You are going to be the hero of this story, my love.”

“But-” She swallows. The lump resting in her throat makes it hard, but she tries to ignore it. “If I kill him. What if the cycle is broken? What if we don’t come back again? What then?”

He hasn’t stopped smiling at her. So proud. So kind. “Then we’ll see what happens next. Do you really think we’ll ever truly end?”

“I don’t know.”

“And even if we did,” he says. “We had 206 other times, you know.”

“They weren’t enough.”

His tilts her chin up. “My love.”

“I’m not enough,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m doing on my own.”

“So you’ll learn,” he says.

She wants another option. She needs a second chance. “Will you visit me? Like this?”

“I will try,” he promises. “For as long as you need me.”

She chokes out a sob. “I love you.”

And she realizes in that moment that he’s been crying this entire time. “I love you, too.”

He leans in, and it’s too familiar for her to ever recover. She won’t move on. She won’t.

This will be the only kiss she gets this lifetime.

It feels unique. Special. Like this one meant something else entirely.

She loves him too much to let go.

But she’ll live.


End file.
